The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan Chapter has threatened to go on strike following shortfall in the payment of salaries and allowances of her members by the federal government.
The union vowed to resist any attempt by the federal government to continue to make her members suffer the biting effects of economic recession due to what it called unjustified and unilateral reductions of salaries of university staff.
Chairman of ASUU University of Ibadan Deji Omole stated this in Ibadan on the deductions of over 140million from the personnel cost sent to the university by the federal government in February.
Other staff unions, including Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-academic staff union of Universities (NASU) and NAAT were also warming up for a showdown with the federal government over the latest round of shortfalls.
The University of Ibadan had last year experienced shortfalls in the payment of salaries of her workers forcing the institution to pay amputated salaries for upward of ten months.
The latest warning was sequel to a letter from the office of the Minister of Finance dated 16th February and signed by M.K. Dikwa and sent to the Vice Chancellor University of Ibadan wherein the Presidential Initiative on Continous Audit claimed that the personnel cost released to the University in January 2017 was in excess of N69,985,954.58 and consequently carried out the deductions in the February allocations.
The letter which was entitled ‘Recovery of Excess Personnel Cost released to MDAs in the Month of January 2017’ read in part: “in line with the federal government’s objective of ensuring greater transparency and the accountability in the administration of personnel cost and associated items of expenditure in the annual budget, the presidential initiative on Continous Audit (PICA) was mandated to examine and verify the personnel cost released to federal MDAs for the Month of January 2017… the exercise revealed that your institution received the sum of N1,076,706,947.58 as against the sum of N1,006,720,993.00 which is the actual verified salary bill for the month of January, 2017. You are therefore requested to make a refund of N69,985,954.58 to the consolidated Revenue Fund and forward evidence of refund to PICA for record, reconciliation and necessary action”
While the university was yet to make the refund, the February allocation to the university was N696, 762,310.67 as against N836,487,299.25 used in paying only ninety-five percent of the salaries in January.
Owing to the development, the university management reportedly called an emergency meeting with union leaders to deliberate on the allocation to the university informing that only about 80percent of their salaries can be paid with the allocation.
While sources at the meeting informed our man of the bitterness of union leaders to the news of another round of shortfall, they called on the federal government to explicitly state how it will claim the University of Ibadan was overpaid when no single staff received full salaries in January.
The ASUU chairman, Omole then wondered the rationale for short-changing workers for working full time urging the Minister of Education to see into the latest development before the Universities are thrown into another round of crisis.
“This government has consistently shown with her policies that they are anti-workers and anti-masses. How can a staff that was only paid a part of his salaries be accused of being over-paid? They should explain to us what is meant by overpayment before they destroy public universities with their latest method to enrich their friends. ASUU vows to resist this latest attempt to make life more difficult for the intellectual community. The public should not blame the union but the government who unilaterally reduced the salaries of lecturers without justification should this lead to unrest on campuses”.
